The 4 Best Night Sights for M&P — Smith and Wesson Shield Reviews 2023

best night sights for m&p, night sights for m&p shield, smith and wesson m&p shield sights

Photo by Kevin Creighton / CC BY

The Smith and Wesson M&P is a modern polymer frame, striker-fired pistol designed to compete with the Glock and similar handguns. Its most noteworthy features include the Smith and Wesson name, the availability of a traditional safety, a decocking feature that does not require dry-firing the gun as part of the takedown, and an affordable price point.

However, like any factory gun, things can be improved, and one of the most popular M&P upgrades is the addition of night sights. Fortunately, the concept and execution of night sights is a fairly simple and affordable so we’ve found 4 of the best night sights for M&P on the market (and we go into what you should look for in the ideal night sights after our recommendations).

Trijicon M&P Shield Night Sights

If you have an M&P Shield, the first word that crosses your mind when you think night sights should be “Trijicon,” and the second word should be “buy.” The reality is that Trijicon practically defines night sights and with good reason.

Their extremely well designed sights (see full specs) are illuminated with an “always on” vial of radioactive tritium. This safe radioactive substance will reliably illuminate night sights for years before having to be replaced. No need to worry about batteries or ambient light to illuminate fiber optics. Trijicon night sights will always work as long as the tritium is within its roughly 12 years of half life, and then you can replace it with a fresh vial. If you have an M&P Shield in 9mm or .40 S&W these are hands down, the sights for you.

Trijicon HD Sights an all around great choice

Truglo M&P Sights

If you are looking for the power of tritium but at a lower price, Truglos might just be the best night sights for M&P handguns period. They’re made of rugged CNC machined steel and fitted with long life tritium inserts. Also, the unique snag-free shape allows use in standard holsters and is designed to fit most any M&P on the market, including the M&P Pro series. These bad boys are a no-brainer choice for night sights on a budget.

TruGlo TFO (Tritium Fiber Optic) Sights Review

Big Dot XS Sights

Big Dot XS systems make a lot of sense for small guns. One my biggest pet peeves is not being able to see small sights on small guns. The XS big dot sights are something else entirely XS Big dots are designed for close range shooting, with concealed carriers in mind. The first is quite large and very easy to see with the naked eye.

It has a wide white circle painted on for daytime use with a small tritium vial in the center that acts as a night sight. This big dot sight is incredibly easy to see and easy to put on target and pull the trigger. The rear sight is very simple and in the center sits a vertical line. The goal is to simply dot the i. Dotting the i gives you proper sight alignment.

The Big Dot sights are designed to limit the time it takes to aim and put effective fire on a target. For the traditionally minded, these might not seem the best night sights for M&P, but after a period of learning, these are well worth it.

How To Install XS Big Dot Sights on Your M&P Shield

Ameriglo M&P Sights

Ameriglos are pretty cool sights and one of the more interesting M&P night sights available. Again, tritium-powered, the Ameriglo sights have a unique single dot design that merely requires lining up the front and rear dots as opposed to sighting the front dot between two rear dots on other, more traditional night sights. A clever idea and a rational one with the added bonus of simply looking unique. These high-grade, snag-free night sights are a fantastic upgrade to your favorite M&P or simply well worth looking at closely as an alternative to other, more traditional styles of night sights. These are hands down some of the best night sights for M&P on the market.

Ameriglos M&P Sights: Orange Front & U Notch Rear

Night Sights, the M&P and You

As I mentioned earlier, the Smith and Wesson M&P is one of the most popular alternatives to other mainstream polymer framed striker fired pistols, and for good reason. Smith has taken what is best about modern poly-framed guns and what is best from traditional handgun design and combined them in a highly acclaimed package.

While there are a great many upgrades for the M&P, the easily removed and replaced sights are one of the most popular features. Using standard dovetails, sights can be easily drifted or pressed out, and then replaced. A few minutes with a laser boresighter (read our article on these gadgets) gets things dialed in well, and you are ready for business.

When selecting night sights, one of the first considerations should be if they will fit standard holsters and offer a snag free design. Molded kydex holsters are very popular for M&P handguns, and there are few worse things than investing in fantastic new sights and finding out they make your holster useless. Or if you use a standard nylon or leather holster, you certainly don’t want to deal with your sights catching and dragging on the holster material or the inside of your clothing as you try to draw.

For the above reasons and more, don’t even consider a sight that isn’t snag free. Look for rounded edges, a lack of needlessly protruding surfaces, and of course the manufacturer claim of snag free design.

You might be concerned about the “radioactive” part of tritium, but it’s actually nothing to worry about. Tritium is a radioactive gas with a 12-15-year half life, and in the tiny quantities used in night sights, it’s pretty harmless, even if you came in direct contact with it, and inhaled all the gas from a vial (very hard as it’s lighter than air and dissipates quickly) you’d be exposed to about the same amount of radiation as a small x-ray, so don’t sweat it, but don’t go out of your way to break the vials either.

The best night sights for M&P provide a valuable tactical advantage for low and no light conditions, and are key for police or home defense work, and are fortunately an inexpensive and easy to install option. Install the best ones and carry on!

  • Owner of Reloaderaddict.com, Boyd Smith is a major handgun enthusiast, and although he owns Glocks, he prefers the revolving wheel type. His go-to guns are a Smith & Wesson 642 Performance Center for carry and a Ruger GP100 in the nightstand biometric safe (he has kids). He loads both revolvers with old-school 148-grain Federal Gold Medal .38 wadcutters. It’s OK if you think he’s a wimp. Email him.

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2 responses

  1. Yes, they’re tritium-powered. They’ll glow even if you keep them in the dark 365 days a year.

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